World records fall at U.S. Olympic swimming trials

Natalie Coughlin could have been better. Ask her. She’ll say the same thing.

“It wasn’t my prettiest of swims,” she said.

She was slow on the turns, as usual. She mentioned that, too. Hey, the 100-meter backstroke is her weakness. Who could blame her for feeling down after it was over? After it was over, by the way, Coughlin had broken the world record, winning the event and securing a place on the U.S. Olympic team.

After three days of the Olympic swimming trials at the Qwest Center, six world records have been broken. Coughlin is responsible for two of those; her backstroke time Tuesday was six-hundredths of a second faster than her time in the preliminary round Monday. The previous record, set by Hayley McGregory, was set Monday, too — and it was a record for about two minutes, before Coughlin broke the backstroke record again.

“The backstroke … is not my strength,” said Coughlin, who broke McGregory’s record one heat after McGregory set it Monday. “Never has been. But I’m working on it.”

Regardless, Coughlin has two records this week and is leading the charge at this year’s meet, where the theme appears to be world records and how often they’ll go down. Michael Phelps, Katie Hoff and Aaron Peirsol also have broken records.

Peirsol’s time in the 100 backstroke broke his own record by .09 of a second.

Peirsol didn’t say anything Tuesday about weaknesses or disappointment. He admitted his time was good — and, well, Peirsol said it had to be if he wanted to go to Beijing.

The 24-year-old from California said the U.S. team is so strong that swimmers almost have to break records if they are to advance. He said the reason is that training and coaching are better this year than normal, and that has led to more broken records.

“It’s just an Olympic year,” he said. “It’s just what happens.”

There might be other reasons, though. And those reasons might be more controversial, more of a hush-hush reason why these records are falling at, well, record pace. Peirsol’s coach mentioned it Tuesday.

“Obviously,” said Eddie Reese, “the suits are helping.”

He was talking about the Speedo LZR swimsuit, the suit designed in part by NASA and claimed to be the world’s fastest swimsuit.

It is lighter and more water repellent than other suits, and entering the Olympic trials, 38 world records had been broken by swimmers wearing the LZR. It was introduced four months ago.

The suit has prompted criticism that it gives swimmers too much of an advantage and is unfair to international competitors who will not wear the suit.

Peirsol didn’t mention anything about the suit; he attributed it mostly to performance and the U.S. team’s talent.

He said swimmers have noticed records falling around the world during other countries’ Olympic trials. He said it was a matter of time before the U.S. team joined the trend.

“We’ve just been waiting for the trials to come around,” he said. “Just to win the race, you’ve got to break the world record. You’ve got to be better than you’ve ever been just to make the team.”

Swimmers will compete at the trials for five more days. If this week’s pace continues, 10 more records will fall.

“It’s a fast field,” Peirsol said. “No doubt about that.”